Most electronic devices generate heat while in use. This heat is typically generated by the flow of electric current through one or more resistive elements and/or components in the electronic device. When the heat generated by these elements and/or components is not efficiently removed, the temperatures of an electronic device can exceed a normal operating range. Operating electronics at temperatures outside of the normal operating range, even periodically, can cause premature failures and result in shorter component life spans.
The efficient thermal management of electronic components and devices generally requires one or more active and/or passive cooling elements. For example, typical microprocessors may generate heat that can be removed or dissipated via an attached heat sink and/or some other cooling element/system, such as a fan, directed cooled air, fluid cooling, etc. In this example, the heat generated may be routed to, and/or dissipated, into an environment immediately surrounding the microprocessors.
However, the options for removing heat from an electronic device within a sealed environment (e.g., hermetic package, pseudo-hermetic package, sealed enclosure, etc.) may be limited to those approaches employing costly, sizable, and/or complex cooling systems.
In addition, modern electronic component assemblies, such as printed circuit board assemblies (PCBAs), may include multiple heat generating elements (e.g., microprocessors, chips, etc.) and/or thermal interfaces on a printed circuit board (PCB), or other circuit substrate. Manufacturing these assemblies generally requires a physical attachment of electronic components via some form of soldering and/or adhesion. As the solder joints in an assembly set (e.g., from a fluid form to solid form) the dimensional tolerances between assemblies may differ significantly and/or stack up on a particular assembly. Dealing with these tolerance issues in a conventional manner generally involves time consuming assembly, costly manufacturing techniques, or an overly-stressed number of components on an assembly (e.g., PCBA) to ensure intimate contact with cooling surfaces in a package.